Our lifters are one week out from the RPS meet and they are all ready.
They are all pretty nervous too.
Many lifters get nervous in the final week and days before the big show.
The week before is a time when you can recover and set yourself up to be strong(er) or a time where you can make a lot of mistakes and sabotage your performance.
Our lifters are all nervous and a little doubtful about taking time off. Some think it will be less than optimal.
It won’t.
Taking some time off before the meet will allow your body to recover and repair itself. You will not lose any strength!
There are as many different approaches for what to do before a meet as there are coaches and I’ll tell you what our lifters do.
OK, I’ll tell you what we tell them to do. It is my hopes that they listen.
I am a huge fan of taking 6-10 days off depending on your training cycle, experience and how well you know your body. When I competed in Strongman, I took 10 days off, with my last training session being on the Wednesday before a Saturday or a Sunday meet.
For powerlifting, I took about 7 days off. Strongman took much more out of me and I was usually pretty banged up so the extra rest did me good. I did some sled dragging after the last real training session to maintain some conditioning and lots of mobility but that’s about it.
That worked for me.
For PL, I didn’t need as much rest so I did that same thing with less time off.
Coach Russ had the team take their openers last week for 3 singles and do a small amount of assistance work. The last session was on Friday. We are having them do a little sled dragging and some mobility work this week to stay loose and we are suggesting a lot of rest and no BOOZING!
The ladies are all excited and seem nervous, especially about the no training part. It’s like some of them don’t know what to do with themselves.
Did I say they were excited?
So what should you do before a meet?
That is up to you and your coach if you have one.
If you are a beginner I will make a few suggestions first:
Let’s assume your meet is on a Saturday. Take your openers two weeks before and cut your assistance work in half, at least. If you are really banged up, cut it back more. Sleep as much as you can and avoid the booze.
Watch your nutrition and your weight. You don’t want to come in too heavy.
On the Monday-Wednesday before the meet, get in the gym and do 10-15 minutes of recovery work with a sled and some mobility and soft tissue work.
From Thursday on, do as little as you can, maybe just soft tissue work.
Get a massage the weekend before the meet. It will do wonders.
If you are more advanced, you probably have a routine, but you may want to consider taking up to 10 days off. This may sound like too much, and if you are not sure, try it before a tune up meet and not a big one. I suggest that you do pretty much the same as I said for the beginners for the week of the meet.
You can also add in contrast showers and if you are brave enough, ice baths to speed recovery.
That’s all for now.
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